Unabated HIV, hepatitis and TB epidemics, overlapping with rising rates of cancers, heart disease, and other chronic noncommunicable illnesses, along with the costs of lifelong treatments are seeing middle-income countries struggling to meet their population’s health needs, the recently released brief Access Challenges for HIV Treatment begins. Add failures in procurement and distribution systems, as well as marginalization of those populations hardest hit by HIV, TB and Hepatitis, and you have a series of obstacles keeping lifesaving interventions from those who need them most in many of the 108 countries classified as lower and middle-income.

The science is clear, HIV criminalization is abusive, discriminatory and counterproductive – The destructiveness of HIV-specific laws that fueled stigma and discouraged diagnosis by criminalizing people […]